Page 120 of Peace Under Fire

She’d been right; orgasming with his hard length inside of her was much more satisfying than climaxing on his finger.

There was no comparison.

CHAPTER 32

“Why do your friends call you Squish?” Mandy asked as she idly traced abstract patterns on his chest. At least, he assumed they were abstract. He’d been too content to open his eyes and check.

“It’s a team nickname.” He did some tracing of his own, sliding his fingers down her spine to cup her curvy ass.

“I know.” A hint of affront touched her voice. “But why that nickname? I mean, why’d you choose Squish?”

He grimaced, some of his contentment eroding. “I didn’t choose it. I got saddled with it by my oh-so-creative team brothers.”

The slow, gentle skim of her fingers froze. She leaned up to peer at his face. They’d switched positions earlier, him stretched out on his back, her curled against his left side—his heart side—where she belonged.

“You hate it.” She sounded surprised.

Why would she be startled by that? Who the hell would want to be saddled with Squish? Like fucking seriously? “Yeah, I do.”

“Can’t you just tell them not to call you that anymore?”

A smile crept across his lips. Christ, she was such an innocent. He hoped she never lost that quality. “Sure, if I wanted to get saddled with something even worse. Whining about a nickname always backfires. Best bet is to ignore it, pretend it doesn’t bother you. The boys love finding your pain points and digging deep.”

“It doesn’t seem like they could have chosen anything worse.”

“Yeah?” He cracked an eye open. He couldn’t wait to see her expression. “How about Dildo? Or Limpdick—one word, by the way. Or Nofuckingclue—also one word.”

Her mouth opened and she sat straight up. “They wouldn’t!”

“They did.” He grinned. He’d helped come up with that last one.

“Okay.” She settled back down. “But why did they choose Squish?”

He grimaced. He hated this story. It made him sound so stupid. He hated looking stupid.

“You don’t have to tell me.”

She must have seen the distaste on his face. He sighed and cuddled her closer. He didn’t want secrets between them. Not even stupid ones like his nickname.

“Keep in mind, I was new to the teams, a real banana. And an arrogant one at that. Some might even say I was full of myself, which didn’t necessarily endear me to my brothers.” Christ, he’d been such a little shit. It seemed so long ago now.

“What did you do?” A smile vied with the curiosity in her voice.

He sighed, cuddling her closer. “Standard operating procedure on deployments calls for an extra pair of boots in our packs. I asked around and nobody had ever used their extra pair. And those boots, they aren’t light. Figured I’d save myself some extra weight, so I pulled the backup pair from my pack.” He’d been so damn green. “First night of downtime, while I was sleeping, during a seven-day Jungle recon, Grumpy filled my one pair of boots with mud. Up to the brim.” Choking sounds came from his right. He glanced down. She had her hand plastered over her mouth, and her eyes were bright with laughter. “I dumped and scooped out as much as I could. But there was still enough mud left inside that all day long, I was squishing, squishing, squishing every time I took a step.” Peals of laughter escaped her hand. He sighed. “Pretty soon they were like, ‘here comes squishy.’ Over time, it got distilled to Squish.”

“Oh my God, that’s awful.” She’d managed to keep a straight face, but her eyes were sparkling with laughter. “Did Grumpy ever apologize for doing that? I mean, that was kind of a dick move. Your socks must have gotten wet, which would cause blisters. And during a seven-day hike, blisters would cause problems.”

“You kidding? Grumpy achieved legendary status with that stunt.” And yeah, he’d gotten blisters. But he’d learned an important lesson too.

Always pack that extra pair of boots.

With that embarrassing story out of the way, he went back to lazing, his contentment so strong he didn’t want to move. He was exactly where he wanted to be, with exactly who he wanted to be with. He couldn’t remember ever feeling such satisfaction in his life.

It took him a while to realize that she’d fallen silent, and tension was radiating from the lush body curled against his side.

He frowned and slipped a couple of fingers under her chin, tilting her face until he could see her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“I’ve been thinking.” The smile she sent him was wobbly and sadness had pushed the laughter from her eyes.

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